I still remember the OU-Texas game in 2018. Sports-wise, I loathe OU football more than anything, and Texas generally comes in second as far as that hatred goes, but I sat there in October 2018 with my two-year-old kid on my sofa and felt the tears well up for reasons unknown until it struck me that it was the first Red River game in seventy-odd years to take place without my grandpa’s attention being paid to it. My grandpa, Jim Knapp, was born in Seminole County in 1935. He coached at New Lima and won the Tournament of Champions in Tulsa and then later coached at Smithville and won that town’s only title and after that retired, and far after that, he took me as a kid to the Big House in OKC nearly every year to watch the state basketball tournament. Good memories. OU-Texas makes me miss him all over again, though as an OSU fan my allegiances lie elsewhere.
I still remember the first time I got to gloat at him when OSU beat OU in ‘01—Josh Fields to Rashaun Woods in the corner of the endzone; I was eleven and could barely contain myself—but he never gloated at me when the reverse far more often occurred.
He taught me to love the sports page of the Oklahoman, and the Tulsa World when we could get it, usually when we left Smithville on a roadtrip and made our way over the mountains to points north, often stopping at a particular gas station in Heavener that served and still serves damn good fried chicken. (Used to be a bit cheaper, like everything else, than it is now.) God I loved to read the paper with him. I remember when OSU was doing well when I was a kid, and we would get the Oklahoman and I’d dive through it, looking particularly for whatever Berry Tramel had to say about the Pokes, and he’d say to me, as if he were just as excited as I was: When your team is good, to read the paper feels good, doesn’t it?
If he were still here and still himself, I think he’d have some harsh words about the current state of things, i.e. OU-Texit. He was a small town man and I don’t think he ever wanted to be any other kind; the money argument would not, in my opinion, have been even remotely persuasive to him.
As a small-school Oklahoma basketball coach, Jim Knapp, my grandpa won five state titles between 1967 and 1985, and his New Lima teams showed up for the state tourney nearly every year. He’s in the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
I miss him anew every year around this time: always liked to see how angry he’d get at OU, his team, no matter how well they were doing. The Sooners could be up thirty on Texas and he’d still be a bit pissed off; then again, one of the New Lima teams he coached won a state title game by fifty—no kidding. If you don’t believe it, you can look it up.
(Grandpa, if you’re reading this, I’m still pulling for Texas this year. Sorry.)
Anyhow: onto this weeks’ picks. Trent and I picked the same outcomes last week and thus both ended up 4-2, both of us narrowly missing on BU-UCF and WVU-TCU.
Trent: 41-14 (.745)
Nate: 37-18 (.672)
Friday
Kansas State 31, Oklahoma State 33. This is the seventieth meeting between these two ag schools of the Great Plains. I don’t really know why I think OSU will prevail here. Or why I think OSU should suddenly score more than 27 points, which the Pokes haven’t done all year. There’s very little evidence that says the Pokes should. Maybe I’m leaning into history: last year aside, usually Mike Gundy is very good when backed into a corner. Some of the panic around this year’s OSU squad—which I’ve certainly partaken in—reminds me of the year when OU opened 1-2, with losses to Ohio State and Houston. Granted, both those teams were pretty damn salty, unlike South Alabama and Iowa State. Then again: if OSU is gonna regain any dignity this year, I think they’ll do it here, on a Friday night, with a blackout planned, at home, against a team that OSU has played a ton of close games against for the past fifteen years ago. Then again, if I’m wrong, I expect the Pokes to lose by a ton. I’m going against the strategy change I announced last week. Sometimes there’s no valor without hope; OSU has some dignity to regain here against these Wildcats that beat them 48-0 last year in Manhattan. The all-time record between these two, who have played a ton of memorable games in the past decades, favors the Pokes 42-27-0. Since 1999, OSU is 7-2 against K-State in Stilly.
Saturday
No. 12 Oklahoma 37, No. 3 Texas 30. Similarly to the Cowboys, I think OU will get revenge against a team that beat them by more than six touchdowns last year. OU thus far looks like one of the more underrated teams in the country. OU had won four straight against Texas before last year’s 49-0 debacle.
UCF 24, Kansas 40. UCF folded up like a wet hat last week after getting a four touchdown lead against Baylor, whereas KU had a much tougher task against Texas. I believe in Lance Leipold. Doesn’t hurt that new Big 12 members are thus far 1-7 against legacy Big 12 teams.
Texas Tech 33, Baylor 34. Baylor is mysterious: 1-3 at home thus far this year with a close 20-13 loss to future Big 12 foe Utah, accompanied with a 38-6 loss to Texas and a bewildering Week One loss to Texas State. Following all that they reversed a 35-7 deficit last week to beat UCF. Texas Tech’s 2-3 record makes more sense: all three losses, to Oregon, Wyoming, and WVU, have come by one score or less, and the Red Raiders were very close to beating Oregon.
TCU 35, Iowa State 38. I’m not sure how else to put it: at this point in the season, at 3-2, as a team that (ostensibly) played in last year’s national championship game, TCU is one of this season’s most disappointing teams. Matt Campbell managed to salvage some momentum two weeks ago by beating OSU in Ames; he’s 4-3 against TCU overall. The only time I’ve been right this year about Iowa State has been when I picked the Clones against the Pokes; we’ll see if I’m right again.